Sunday, December 31, 2006

First it was DIM and then there was SUM

Last day of the year 2006. How momentous. Not really. Another year has come. Many things are on the anvil, while others are following their due or undue course.

The day started with Dim Sum at the Golden Tripod Attic, a huge 24-hour restaurant near the Yonghegong Lama temple. Perhaps not the best dim sum in town, especially if you believe my Cantonese roommate Hok-Kwan, but it is affordable, right off the subway, and has rather pleasing décor. From there some of us waddled over to Houhai, second day running that I was walking the hutongs, and found a nice little café. I opened up Orhan Pamuk’s Snow and spent a few pleasant hours reading up on things in the tiny town of Kars on the Turkish border.

In the evening, attended New Year’s revelry at Lauren’s. Was a relatively quiet way to usher in the New Year, and all the better for it.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Beijing Snow

The first snow of the winter is here. It was supposedly –11 degrees Celsius yesterday, so last night when it finally came down, it stuck. Fearing that it wouldn’t last, I spent much of the afternoon today in Houhai walking the hutongs, enjoying their snowflake-covered splendor. Moments like these accentuate just how lousy a place Wudaokou is. If I end up spending time doing research here in the coming years, I will be sure to avoid the blessed Wu, the scar (admittedly not the only one) that mars Beijing’s face.

Last night also happened to visit the “Beijing CD Jazz Club.” A nice little bar located just south of the agricultural exhibition ground in Chaoyang. They have live Jazz Thursday (or is it Wednesday) through Sunday. Lead by saxophonist Liu Yang, we heard a quartet of drums, cello, sax, and piano, all together three Chinese musicians, and one American. Was absolutely great. I am definitely hitting it up again sometime soon.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Staying on the military theme...

Last week I tried my hand at translating. I have applied to translate for the Tsinghua Journal Science of International Politics and this was a little test they gave. I am not too confident, especially since I couldn't translate a particular phrase/name. Oh well. The fuits of my recent labors are below.

Original:

攻防理论的一个基本预设是,军事技术攻防优势的变化将自动改变国家的军事战略,但这一预设几乎未得到充分的评估。对此,徐进的《军事技术变化与军事战略转型》要回答的问题是,当军事技术出现攻防优势变化时,军事战略如何进行转型?国家为什么不能及时进行战略转型?通过考察军事史,作者发现,军事战略与军事技术之间经常出现不相符的现象,即军事战略不会自动“跟上”军事技术攻防优势的变化。作者认为,国家不能及时进行战略转型的原因,在于其习惯按照上一场战争的模式来准备下一场战争,无视军事技术的攻防优势在两次战争间隔期可能发生的转换。论文工作得到的启示是,以信息技术为核心的军事高技术群具有进攻优势,在其他条件不变的情况下,世界武器技术的信息化发展趋势将增大中国卷入军事冲突的危险。中国军队在完成机械化和信息化双重历史任务的过程中,要特别注重进攻性武器装备的研制和进攻作战理论的研究。

新现实主义理论认为,国际无政府状态下,面对霸权威胁时,国家趋于制衡霸权,但国际关系中许多国家的行为与沃尔兹的理论预期发生了较大的偏离。韦宗友的《霸权阴影下的战略选择》对这一现象做出了解释。论文认为,面对霸权威胁时,体系内的其他国家可能有制衡、追随和不介入三种政策选择,制衡并非国家的主导战略。影响国家战略选择的因素包括五个,即无政府文化结构、体系格局、国家间的权力对比、地理位置以及决策者观念。通过对战国时期诸侯兼并战争的详细考察,作者指出,正是在上述五个因素的综合作用下,秦国最终才能够歼灭六国,建立起“大一统”的帝国。

Translation:

A fundamental assumption in Defense Theory[1] is that changes in defensive[2] military technology automatically bring about changes in a country’s military strategy. But this assumption still suffers from being inadequately assessed. How do we carry out a transformation in military strategy amid changes in defensive military technology? Why can a country not conduct such transformations in a timely manner? These are the questions Xu Jin addresses in his “Changes in Military Technology and the Transformation of Military Strategy.”[3] In his study of military history Xu discovered that military strategy and military technology often experience non-corresponding developments; military strategy does not of its own accord keep pace with changes in defensive military technology. According to him, the reason a country is unable to carry out a timely transformation in its military strategy stems from the practice of preparing for a future war by studying the patterns of an earlier war, and from the neglect of changes in military technology during the intervening period between the two wars. His principal message is that an information and technology centered military group[4] possesses superiority in attack, and that ceteris paribus, the worldwide spread of weapon’s technology increases the danger of China being drawn into military conflicts. Therefore, during the process of completing the dual historical tasks of mechanization and bringing about an information revolution[5], the Chinese army needs to especially focus on the manufacture of offensive weapons and research the theory of assault warfare.

Neo-realism maintains that in the absence of an international government nations seek to restrain and balance a hegemonic power. However, in international relations the actual behavior of many nations deviates a great deal from that anticipated by such a XXX[6] theory. In “Strategic Choice under Hegemony,” Wei Zongyou attempts an explanation of this phenomenon. Wei states that when faced with a hegemonic threat, restraining or balancing the hegemonic power is by no means the only available strategy. Nations can also choose to align with the hegemonic power, or to stay uninvolved. He proposes five factors that influence a nation’s strategic decision-making, namely, its non-governmental cultural structure[7], its systemic structure[8], its relative power vis-à-vis other nations, its geographic location, as well as the views of its policymakers. Using the Wars of Annexation of the Warring States period as an example, he notes it is precisely by employing a combination of the aforementioned five factors that the Qin were ultimately able to destroy[9] the six countries and establish a united empire.

Notes:
[1] Theory of Defense?
[2] The shortening of: defense superiority.
[3] Are there standard translations for the titles of cited books/essays?
[4] The original “information-centered high technology military group” is awkward.
[5] Is there a standard translation used for the Chinese “信息化”? I have translated it as: bringing about an information/communications revolution? I remain unsure of what might be a suitable one-word translation in the English language.
[6] How does this translate: 沃尔兹?
[7] Better translation? Culture?
[8] Better translation? Political [power] structure?
[9] Better word ‘overcome?’

A trip down military lane

Braving what is probably the coldest day in Beijing thus far, Hans and I rendezvous outside the 军事博物馆(junshi bowuguan) subway stop. The stop is aptly named since that is precisely what greets us as we step out into the open. The military museum of the People’s Republic is housed in a Soviet style building, imposing and ugly; perhaps a distant and rather stunted child of the main building of the University of Moscow (which from the pictures I have seen does look much more impressive).

But we don’t spend much time discussing whether ours is an apt comparison. We buy our tickets, resist the additional temptation to pay an extra 5 kuai to poke around a little torpedo boat outside, and rush into the relative warmth of the museum. The atrium is plastered with massive pictures of Mao, Deng, as well as the common man, addressing troops, riding in automobiles, storming buildings, and looking important, while doing important things. By now, I am more concerned at how far away the ceiling is and that it really isn’t all that much warmer inside. No matter, for soon even more immediate questions demand my attention. Right, left, or straight ahead? Straight. Perhaps because that’s the only direction we actually espy an exhibit.

Two limousines lie straight ahead. The one to the right, long, black, sleek in spite of its size, is Chairman Mao’s personal vehicle. It sits on a tiny platform, ringed off, so that we can barely touch it. We try peering in but cannot see much. I sense perhaps the inaccessibility is meant to add to the aura of the man. I am not awed, merely disappointed. The passage opens into a giant hall. Three mannequins dressed in the uniforms of the three services stand in attention. Around them are planes, tanks, self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers, jeeps, and other military hardware. Among the exhibits I find the famous Mig-15 Fagot, which troubled the supposedly superior F-86 Sabre during the Korean War. Next to it is the Mig-19, codenamed Farmer, another famous plane and one that, last I know, was still being produced in China as late as the mid 1990s. Of course, they have Chinese names, and Chinese modifications. A little marvel called reverse engineering. Regardless of how much time I labor over them, my Chinese makes limited sense of the information boards. I retain an air of studied ignorance as I walk around.

To the right is a tiny door that opens into one of the internal courtyards. Outside are more military machines, but these are spoils of war, and include American tanks captured in the Korean War. It is interesting to see a big Sherman tank in China. I keep an eye out for things Indian, but find none.

We escape the cold again and head upstairs. The staircase is very wide, awfully grand, but also very dark. Hans suggests that the building might have been a gift from Stalin. He says there is a similar building in Poland, a gift from Stalin, which the Poles now try to hide as best as they can.

We walk into the exhibit on the War of Resistance against the Japanese. This is important stuff, and still fuels the distrust that many Chinese harbor towards the Japanese. Big maps explaining battle plans and troop movements, individual stories of heroes, exhibits containing clothes, weapons, personal effects, and other tools overwhelm us. The Guomindang or any discussion about them is conspicuously absent, or limited at best. My Chinese fails me again, as does my limited grasp of the detailed events of the 1930s.

Hans and I amble along, admiring collections of rifles and pistols. There are so many that they could probably outfit a full regiment. We explore halls focusing on Qing military affairs, the 19th century wars of humiliation, and the foundation of the PRC. We stop in front of wax figures of Mao, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Liu Shiaoqi, et al. They are all smiling, looking out at the visiting tourists, and beyond. Maybe Mao just made a joke. Or perhaps they are just happy to finally be in control of China’s destiny. I prefer the first possibility. The second has too much dark humor attached to it.

By now our spirits are flagging. They are temporarily raised by the amusement offered by the exhibit containing gifts presented by visiting military delegations, or those presented to touring Chinese delegations. I finally find something from India: a sword, rather a scimitar, the Indian Talwar, presented sometime in the 1950s. Not surprisingly, there is nothing since. But gifts from the former Soviet republics abound, as do the ones from former Warsaw pact countries and from African nations. We are amused and intrigued in turn by the gifts and the countries they are from.

I walk out with the impression, albeit circumscribed by my aforementioned studied ignorance, that this museum reinforces notions of Chinese victim-hood. Patriotic flag waving is the staple diet of any military museum, but in China it seems to be informed and, perhaps even overpowered, by an intense sense of victimization. It makes me reflect on how we in India construct our recent history. Oppression is very much a part of recent Indian history. But India’s history appears more contested. Both India and China since the late 1940s have fed on the notions of a glorious past, and the need to achieve it again. In China there appears to be a clearer understanding of what that means perhaps, as well as a sense of inevitability about it. Manifest destiny? Chinese style? As always I walk away with half-baked ideas and notions, but also more to research and ponder over.

Not every story ends well. I catch a cold, and probably something else too. End up sick, coughing, congested, and not a little worse for the week.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Sacrificing Cinematic Immortality at the altar of Linguistic Lunacy

They are shooting the Kite Runner in Hebei province some 300 kilometers away from Beijing. An ad seeking extras has been placed in thatsbj.com (bj being Beijing, for those of you whose thoughts are often raunchier than their deeds). But for the fact that the shooting is on Wednesday and Thursday, I would most certainly have been off to be a part of big budget cinema. Would I pass as Afghan? Probably not, though I do possess a nose that would not embarrass me. In any case, it is moot, since I don’t think I am going. Ah, the opportunities I squander in my quest to achieve the linguistic competency of a 10 year old.

On a related note, I find it interesting that they chose to film in China and not elsewhere. If Afghanistan is too dangerous, which it very well might be, then what about the other ‘stans? Indeed, what about Pakistan? More realistic terrain, definitely a lot easier to find extras, not to add that it would also probably be a lot cheaper. I am intrigued, and shall investigate.